


Groundwork

by De_Nugis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-12
Updated: 2011-11-12
Packaged: 2017-10-25 23:31:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/276059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/De_Nugis/pseuds/De_Nugis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's drinking grape soda. Dean's drinking. Things are mostly OK.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Groundwork

Sam’s smiling.

Dean keeps glancing over, quick, confirming looks, Sam in shotgun a bedrock certain surprise every time, and Sam’s smiling. Dean checks it off, wrong car, yeah, but it’s running OK, Sam in the passenger seat, and then a little shock of _huh_ runs through his brain and he glances sideways again, because Sam is smiling. There are a thousand snapshots of that in Dean’s mind, but almost all of them have less muscle and less of that stupid hair and a hundred and eighty-four fewer years on them, give or take.

Maybe twenty glances in Sam catches him. The smile transmutes instantly into a scowl, but then it quirks at the corners and when Dean turns his eyes resolutely back to the shiny black road and the cows getting rained on beside it and the splash of bird shit on the windscreen stubbornly not washing away his own lips curve up. His heart is beating against his chest in time with the wipers, a quickened swoosh-thunk, like anticipation. There’s a glance of warmth on his right cheek, Sam looking at him and looking away.

They have to stop midafternoon to get gas. The sun is breaking through and everything is dripping in dazzling splashes. Sam vanishes into the convenience store while Dean’s at the pump and comes out with with Hostess Cupcakes and beef jerky and coffee for Dean and a can of grape soda for himself.

“Dude,” says Dean. Dean’s no one’s poster boy for healthy eating, let alone healthy drinking, but even he can tell the difference between a flavor and a color, and that shit tastes of pure artificial purple.

Sam’s looking at the can with a new and different smile, small and curious. “I used to love this stuff,” he says, and it’s true, he did, he drank it the whole summer he was seven. He examines the tab for a moment like it’s an alien artifact, then pops it and tilts back his head, draining the can in a single, protracted draft. Dean stares at his bobbing Adam’s apple. Sam finishes, gives the empty can a long look, then suddenly he crushes it, one-handed. The left hand. Dean holds his breath. Sam’s head is bowed now, bent towards the little aluminum pancake he’s holding. Then he shies it into the recycling by the store door.

“That was gross,” he says. “That was really, really gross. That was like something you would drink.”

“I would never,” says Dean. “I have my pride.”

 

They get back in the car and drive. Sam doesn’t crash like he tends to in the afternoons when Dean’s driving. Dean sees his eyes flick and catch and let go, alert and contented, locks on the canal, the high bridge over the Hudson, more cows.

It’s only five when they shoulder open the door to yet another motel room and dump their duffels on their respective beds. Dean takes a quick pull at his flask while Sam's in the bathroom but he's good, really. Just getting started on the evening.

This is a part of the country he's passed through probably a hundred times – old houses with spirits like a fashionable architectural flourish, plus he'd tried to gank the Lake Champlain monster a time or two. Well, he would have settled for seeing it. There's a pub/tavern thing nearby, a bit pretentious, more Sam's thing than his, but they've got a terrace with picnic tables by the river. They could go there. Only fair if Dean's still eating crow with his burgers the next little while.

Sam comes out of the bathroom just then and catches Dean taking his second pull. His eyebrows draw together in instant disapproval. Dean holds out the flask, somewhere between propitiatory and genuine invitation, because Sam must need something, too. And Dean maybe needs to see what's going on under there, under those morning jogs and protein bars and hovering concern and neatly made motel beds and those trips down memory lane to the soda machine. Like he'd unwrapped the bandage on Sam's hand every evening for weeks, checking up on how it wasn’t healing. He just needs to see.

Not that new Sam's likely to be a talky drunk. Not that Dean wants to know how often Lucifer is sitting there between them, what Satan has to say about Dean and his pathetic secrets, how much Sam listens.

Sam is staring at him. "What?" he says, and Dean realizes he's been sitting there like an idiot holding out his flask all the time he's been thinking.

"Drink?" he says inanely.

Sam's lips compress but he doesn't really look angry.

"No," he says. "No thanks. Dean . . ."

Dean takes a defiant third pull. Sam won't stop looking at him.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, bad for me, talk it out, cry on whichever of your shoulders the devil’s not sitting on. Can we just take it as read? Sometimes it's just having a drink, Sam."

At least the whole little scene's gotten Sam past the weirdo smiling shit. He sits down on the bed next to Dean with a tired sigh.

"Sometimes it is. All the time it isn't. But whatever. I don't want to have this fight right now any more than you do. Just put that damn flask away."

Dean puts it down on the bedside table, within reach. “I thought we could eat at that pub thingy, the Riverside Tavern, the one where you fed the ducks,” he says. Maybe Sam will smile.

He frowns.

“Didn’t you hate that place? Twelve dollar bison burgers and microbrews with quaint names.”

“Whatever. Beer’s beer. Assuming I’m allowed to drink beer.”

Sam leans forward with sudden decision, screws the cap tight on the flask, shoves it into Dean’s duffel.

“All right,” he says. “Tell you what, I get to pick the beer, you have to order it. By name. No pointing at the menu. Even if it’s called Uncle Glug’s Winter Wedgie or something. Let’s go. Let's eat something overpriced and give the ducks heart attacks by feeding them fries. Let's, I don't know, go to a movie."

"You want to go on a date? Maybe have make-up sex? Sure you're not holding out for flowers, princess?" Maybe that was a risky shot. They're supposed to be burying the hatchet, not digging up bits of the past they don't talk about.

But Sam looks at him and he's fucking smiling again.

"Maybe chocolate," he says. "It's good for you. The dark stuff, that is. None of that fatty, waxy Hershey's shit."

"Dude, I'm not buying you healthy candy. That's just wrong."

"They make it with bacon now, you know. Some of those artisanal places."

"You're making that up."

"Swear to God, Dean. Bacon chocolate. Chocolate bacon."

"I'm taking away your porn. That's some sick stuff you're into."

"Imagine it, Dean. Chocolate melting in your mouth. Smooth. Rich. Just on the edge of bitter. And then the bacon. Crunchy and chewy and salty. Maybe maple cured, that trace of sweetness. It could be good, Dean. You might like it."

Dean shifts a bit. Sam's sitting too damn close, practically breathing in Dean's face with his chocolate bacon talk. And smiling.

"What's with you today, anyway?" Dean asks, and Sam edges away a few of inches, ducks his head, smile going embarrassed and deprecating.

"I don't know," he says. "Just, a good day, I guess. Mostly."

"You know it freaks me out when you have those." And Dean's not even kidding. Whatever's going on in Sam's head to make him so goddamn OK, it's got to be dangerous, another excursion onto the high dive. Sam may be going for Olympic level acrobatics there, but Dean can still imagine the sickening snap when he hits the water wrong and breaks his neck. Metaphorically speaking. A sound like the crack of a gunshot. Maybe two. If someone else doesn't pull that trigger first.

"Dean," says Sam, "Hey, Dean, it's going to be OK. Really."

Dean's face must have looked like something or other. Something Sam shouldn't see. But Sam leans in, slow, and presses his lips to Dean's. Gentle and sure, like they've been doing that all along, like it hasn't been years. Like it had ever been easy. Last time they'd had forty-two hours to go on Dean's countdown. Sam tearing at Dean's clothes, biting at his shoulder, pounding into him like he could nail them to that moment, sweat and hard burn and fingernails digging in above Dean's heartbeat, so deep they drew blood. Silent, except for the harsh drag of their breaths, because Bobby was downstairs. Nothing was going to be OK. Then Sam had said, "Fuck, _fuck_ ," and picked up his damn useless book again, tearing through it as savagely as he'd torn through Dean, making up for lost time that was going to run out anyway.

Sam had been so angry with him that whole year. And then Dean had come back with the little half-moons of Sam's nails erased with the rest of his scars and found Ruby in Sam's motel room.

Now Sam's holding him lightly by the shoulders, and looking at him with that hopeful scrutiny that sends fine, spiderweb cracks of panic radiating out through Dean’s mind. He can deal with Sam urgent and furious and disappointed. He can deal with Sam pulling a gun on him, thinking he's the devil. Even just thinking he’s an alcoholic loser. He can't deal with this. He shrugs Sam’s hands off.

"Seriously, Sam. What is with you? You keep doing this. This back from hell health kick. These fucking good days. This _talk to me, you're not fine_. Guess what? _You_ are not fucking fine. You don't like being lied to, but you're lying to me. Every fucking day. You're not fine."

Sam flinches back a little but his face is still all patient and reasonable and unshaken.

"It's not like that," he says.

“So tell me what’s it’s like, then. Since you’re so into openness.”

Sam fiddles with the bedspread, starts to speak, shuts his mouth, starts over.

“I guess, I mean. You remember what you said, at that warehouse? Real stuff’s different. It gets through. And it isn’t just pain, you know. It doesn’t have to be pain. It’s like, yeah, I see him. I see him all the time. And I know it’s a tightrope or something, I know I could slip. I know I’m scaring you. But then there’s the stuff that’s real. That stupid can of shitty grape soda. I remembered it, you know. When I saw it in the cooler at the store, I remembered being a kid and drinking it. And you, being here. I mean, that’s real, right? We’re not in hell, either of us. And it’s just, it’s kind of amazing, after everything, that there’s stuff that’s real. That there’s _good_ stuff that’s real. So I’m OK, Dean. Really.”

And it's plausible, all right. Sam's trying, Dean knows that, trying to be honest, trying to put his money where his mouth is on the opening up thing. But Sam's not stupid. Some level he's got to know it's bullshit. Nothing's OK. But if Sam can do that fucking stupid hope thing, maybe Dean can do something. Let things be a little good. For now.

"You're comparing me to grape soda," he says. Sam smiles. It’s pretty easy, actually, to smile back.

"Yeah,” says Sam, “That was a bad idea. You taste better. Much better."

Sam's mouth is slow and exploratory and he takes forever, licking into Dean’s. His hand moves over Dean’s back in circles and slow strokes, like he’s reassuring him. Or assuring himelf. Then his lips are tracing down Dean's neck, hovering, barely touching, till he comes to the hollow of Dean's throat and bites down.

“You’re real,” he says. Dean closes his eyes.

“I’m real,” he agrees. God help him.

 

 _Paranormal Activity 3_ is really fucking awful.

“That was really fucking awful,” says Dean. “I can’t believe you made us go to that. I no longer owe you make-up sex. You owe me a blowjob. You owe me several blowjobs.”

Sam kisses him. He tastes of popcorn.

“I’m not kidding, Sam,” says Dean. “I drank beer with a name. I watched a shit movie. I’m a fucking saint.”

“You’re a virile manifestation of the divine,” Sam says.

Dean might have known Sam had filed that to use against him.

“Those words leave your mouth again, I’m braining you with a crystal,” he says.

“It's a special I'm running," says Sam. "Your blowjob comes with a free affirmation. Resistance is useless. You are a rakish encyclopedia of feeble wit.”

“Your affirmation sounds an awful lot like an insult,” says Dean.

“Yeah,” says Sam, “Maybe.”

He’s smiling. It looks real.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Groundwork](https://archiveofourown.org/works/761418) by [applegeuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/applegeuse/pseuds/applegeuse), [fishpatrol](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishpatrol/pseuds/fishpatrol)




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